


College Killed "Us"

by DuckAestheticOfficial



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Cancer, College AU, M/M, iwaoi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 00:12:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10477728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuckAestheticOfficial/pseuds/DuckAestheticOfficial
Summary: It's common knowledge that going to separate colleges can kill a friendship, but they never thought that it could literally kill one of them.





	

Eight years. That's how long it had been. Eight long years since Oikawa Tooru had seen his best friend. 

They had talked often the first year that went to Uni, almost daily, but as the years went on, their talks were fewer and far between. By the fourth year, they were lucky to talk for ten minutes a month and when the fifth started, there were no more calls. 

Iwaizumi Hajime had a busy social life. He was still playing volleyball and working a full time job, last Oikawa heard. 

He wasn't particularly busy himself. At first, he'd joined volleyball, but without Iwaizumi there to stop him, he'd pushed it too far and wound up needing surgery on his knee. Oikawa stopped going out after that. His social life diminished, so when Iwaizumi stopped taking his calls and calling him back, he couldn't stop the depression that set in.

Anti-depressants helped, but the side effects were so horrendous that he rarely took them.

Somehow, he made it threw the last four years to graduation and was going back home to see his best friend. 

The train ride was long, but the day Oikawa spent with his family was longer. While they were clearly excited to have him home, they were being extremely careful about what they said. He thought it to be because of his depression, but when he arrived at the Iwaizumi household the next day, he understood.

Iwaizumi's mother had hugged him tight and let him in to Iwaizumi's room before leaving him to process the news. 

He sat on the bed he'd spent the night in so many times and looked around at the familiar crème-colored walls covered in volleyball and promotional movie posters, The room hadn't changed the eight years they were gone. 

Oikawa clutched the white envelope in his hands tightly, his name scrawled on the front in Iwaizumi's sloppy handwriting. He wasn't ready to read it; the last message he would ever receive from his best friend. 

He kept waiting for the man to shop up, though he knew he'd never come.

Everything made sense now; the random pains Iwaizumi would get growing up, but quickly brushed off as though it had been nothing more than a pinch and he hadn't been crying on the ground minutes before. He'd broken his phone just after the their fifth year of college began and had gotten a new one with a new number, loosing Oikawa's contact in the process. It was during the sixth year that things took a turn for the worse. Iwaizumi grew sick, the pain so bad that there were times he didn't leave his bed for days.

He'd dropped college and moved back home after two months of it. His parents had taken him to see a doctor. 

They news was shocking, heartbreaking. This wasn't a new sickness, just worsening. The cancer that had plagued Iwaizumi's body had spread to nearly all of his bones. It would have been treatable when he was still in junior high, but it was too far advanced at this point. Treatment would only prolong his life an additional sixth months at best and Iwaizumi refused it.

He would have just under a year to live.

His mother said that he had tried desperately to find a way to reach Oikawa, but that was the year his parents had taken to traveling an everyone else he'd asked either no longer had it, or never did.

In the end, he'd written him the letter and, as Oikawa began his seventh year of college, Iwaizumi Hajime succumbed to his cancer.

For hours, Oikawa sat in that room, staring at the unopened letter in his hands. It was only when the tears had dried on his cheeks that he carefully broke the seal.

 

Dear Tooru,  
I'm sorry that I didn't get to say goodbye. I'm sorry that you had to find out this way. I'm sorry we didn't get more time together. I don't want to fill this letter with only apologies. I'm sorry for a lot of things, but most of them aren't important.  
I want to thank you. Thank you for pestering me in elementary and staying by my side despite how many times I told you to bug off. Thank you for introducing me to volleyball and being an amazing captain. Mostly, thank you for being my best friend.   
I don't know what I would have done without you and these last few years have been rough not having you with me. I wish that you could be here to say goodbye in person. I hate doing it like this. It doesn't feel right.   
Please don't be too upset when you find out. Finish college and live out your life. If not for yourself, then do it for me. I don't get that chance.   
Thank you for everything.  
-Hajime


End file.
